Rebecca Petchenik

Rebecca: My name is Rebecca Petchenik.  I'm 29 and I live in Portland, Oregon. I am passionate about theatre.  I'm a playwright and currently a producer and director.  I've got a play premiering in February, and we're all very excited.

I love to write.  But that's my work.  I like to be around art and make art.  I go to museums and galleries as often as I can.  I also like music. I spend a lot of time consciously listening to and seeking out new music.  I try to keep my tastes as broad as possible.

Beck: What's a moment that changed you forever for the better?

R: We're all kind of a just a series of moments if you think about it.  It's hard to point to any one moment as the one that changed me when there were so many more that came after, you know?  There are the big ones like coming out of the closet, and graduating college, but i think the smaller moments are much more profound for us.  Those moments are when we're quiet and thinking, and lots of things become clear. About ourselves and the world around us. So somewhere in the fabric of spacetime, there's a moment where I'm being quiet and thinking about my own nonsense and how it needs to end.  It just probably wasn't very interesting. I can remember nights on late busses riding around whatever sleeping city I was in where the many directions I could take spread out in front of me. In these quiet memories, on these quiet busses tooling along through warehouse districts and industrial plants, those big tangled monsters of lights and pipes and steam along waterways and far from the highway, I can still feel the emptiness of my life at that time.  I existed nowhere with nowhere interesting to be. And it's always to those moments I go when I feel myself slipping, and my forward progress begins to falter. Any of these instants have pushed me to being a better person leagues more than any calamity could. That change to be better comes from within. And you can only get to that place if you sit down for a second and be quiet.

B: What is one thing you wish everyone knew about?

R: I wish everyone knew the truth about skittles.  They're all the same flavor. You just see the color and your brain tricks you into thinking they're different flavors.  It's a vast conspiracy. Think about it. Eat two skittles while blindfolded and see if you can taste a difference. You can't.